Need help choosing a good mobo for overclocking

[CMatty]

Hi,
I am building a PC for a friend with the promise it will be better and cheaper than the DELL he was gonna get. I was thinking of a Epox 8K5A3+ with an unlocked XP2200+ and OCZ PC 3200 ram. Thing is he wants to run a really high fsb like 200+, I know nothing is guaranteed but is the memory and board up to it? Does it have the necessary dividers to run a high fsb? If anyone has any other suggestions like an alternative P4 setup that would be great.

Thanks

Matty

[IFMU]

Wow.... thats asking alot before hand. I havent personally seen to much on that board yet. And I can only recall crappy thoughts on the OCZ mem. I would look into some Crucial or Samsung mem personally. Nuthin but great luck with those here.

Im sure someone will be able to give you some help with that mobo.

oh yea, heh, Welcome to the Sickness.

[TheDude]

The Epox and Abit boards are known for high FSB, so either would be OK. The Epox has high voltage selection without any modifications (up to 2 vcore) so if volt mods are not your thing, maybe the best choice ....although with a mod the Abit wins hands down and the Abit KD7 has a 1/6th divider...not sure about voltage selection on this board. The Epox model previous to the Epox 8K5A3+ would switch itself to a 5 divider when you hit 166 FSB...I assume this one will also?

I would stay away from OCZ ram...I tried it and returned it...does not perform as advertised. Sammy...Mushkin or Corsair would be better and usually 1 265 stick is best for OCing.

The xp2200+ is a good choice because it is so easy to unlock.

You did not mention an important factor....COOLING for this setup is VITAL. It will be your limiting factor with good ram. Your other cards will benefit from the 5 divider so as long as you hit at least 166FSB..should not be a biggie.

I played with the Epox and Mushkin ram and vapo cooling and hit about 206 fsb.. others have done better. Hope this helps you decide.

[Torinalth]

any of the above boards are good, though the 2200s are hard to unlock as the new core has not trickled down to thhe 2200s yet, though I might have missed it if they have changed over already.

also for a P4 aproach, that you mentioned, a 2.26B and a solid abit it7-max, p4r533n from iwill, or maybe chaintech apogee, or gigabyte 8iexp will work just fine.

for memory: corsair, mushkin, geil (also known as OCZ but my geil 3500 rocks), and samsung. that is my recomendation in order of personal preference.

Torinalth

[ns_ripper]

the epox 8k3a performs better at the same fsb as the 8k5a. it seems like another crappy bios.

[TheDude]

Torinalth,

I unlocked (and fried) 2 xp2200 cpus....just 1 bridge to do. I got one of the very first ones to become available.

Unless I am having another Brain Fart...been having a lot of them lately.